This contest is now over. We have selected the winners - see if you are one of them towards the bottom of the page.

One of my greatest annoyances with Android, as a developer and an employee having to connect to my company's VPN, is the complete lack of attention to usability of VPN-related activities. Not only is it impossible to pull out a widget to connect to a VPN server, but Google apparently thought it wasn't useful (and so insecure that it shouldn't even be an option) to add the ability to save the VPN password. Sure, it's more secure to type it up every time, but I give you 3 tries before you want to pull out your hair, especially on a shaky connection.

Given this annoyance, I set out to find a more acceptable solution a few months ago and found nothing acceptable, except for 1 VPN and 5 VPN apps, both made by doAndroids. These programs are able to maintain multiple VPN profiles with some very useful settings (like auto-reconnect and keep-alive ping), and, drumroll - they give you an option to save your password.

Moreover, there is a very handy widget you can pull out to your homescreen for a quick way to connect to the server you need. And did I mention the Tasker/Locale plugins that can automate connecting to the right VPN based on certain conditions, such as your location?

The 5VPN app is free, but needs 5 clicks to establish connection, while the 1 VPN app only requires 1 (it costs $2.95). In retrospect, this was money very well spent, and I love this app to death.

Check out the screenshots below and then jump straight to the giveaway - we've got 20 free 1 VPN licenses waiting anxiously for their new owners!

Screenshots

Giveaway

And the winners are:

Tommaso Bartoli

Amir Khan

Jeppe Rishede Thomsen

Martin Tampír

hesham othman

Phil Fernandez

Cesar Cardoso

Jason Ripmaster

José Alejandro Carrillo Neira

Nathan Siy

Brian Kho

Ladislav Balik

chetan yalamanchili

Christian Mo Zelin

Anjie Cai

Jason Learst

Chris Lorincz

JM Ayala

Piotr Czajkowski

nima pirmoradian

Emails have been dispatched notifying them of how to collect their winnings.

Thanks for playing!

1 VPN costs $2.95 in the Market, but today, we have 20license keys to give out, courtesy of doAndroids.

How To Win

Entering the giveaway is really simple - just make sure you complete the steps below.

Step 1.

There are 2 parts in this step: complete either one of them to be eligible or both to double your chances of winning.

Follow@AndroidPolice on Twitter, then tweet the following message exactly as below:

Hi,
Currently we support the types of VPN clients that comes natively with Android: PPTP, L2TP and L2TP/IPSec. Support fot OpenVPN would require installing a third party app, which only works on "rooted" phones. Until this changes we don't have plans to support it, sorry.

I'm having a hard time trying to setup a OpenVPN or a PPTPD VPN on my debian server. It's running on a OpenVZ VM, and it really has problems with tun/tap and all this stuff. Today I figured out how to use ssh tunnel + proxifier, but i'd pay for a vpn service if I receive this app.

Hi,
Actually, L2TP/IPSec VPN, which is supported, normally uses RSA keys. So I'm guessing that it is not RSA in itself that is the problem with your company's VPN?

Deeps

The shared comment to be tweeted on twitter ,"Entered to win 1 of 20 #Android 1VPN keys from @AndroidPolice. Finally, a 1-click VPN widget that saves your password. http://bit.ly/ap-1vpn" can't be done 'coz of word limit constraint. How do I become part of this contest?